How to avoid "they haven't fought a real war in centuries"?

ZVar wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:
How much of this was due to trying to make do with insufficient funding?

None of it was because of funding. We aren't talking millions of dollars here. We are talking 300-600 a week depending on usage that week.

(Speaking as someone, that while I don't live in Flint, I do live in the same Genesee county, so I was here from the start.)
Oh, and I have to keep water bottles on hand because my daughter's best friend, who does live in Flint will not drink tap water now, not that I blame her.

At the time of the crisis, I was about living 2 and a half hours away in Ohio - About 3 months into the crisis, I got offered an IT job in Flint, offering ~2.5-3x the normal regional pay for that type of position. (To compare, a couple years later in 2019, working a much more senior role in the same field in the Detroit suburbs an hour south of Flint, netted me only 60% of what they were offering for that job in Flint.)

So that 3-600 dollar a week decision, had wide ranging effects - not just the cost to completely replace the city piping, and ship in bottled water for 150K residents, but regional businesses had to pay large sums to get trained personnel to take jobs in the region, and probably had a higher # of turnovers, as people decided that this was the straw that broke the camels back, and looked elsewhere for better jobs. Of course, none of these new employees would actually live in Flint, taking their tax dollars elsewhere.

IIRC, Flint was basically a dangerous slum before the oopsie, with a very high crime rate and a lot of poverty. And those kinds of towns don't tend to be be well run.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Surprisingly, none of us has mentioned the Flint water crisis, where public administrators ignored specialist's recommendations and decided to save money by not including certain chemicals into the water supply which were required to protect the lining of century old water mains. Mains, which would later leach toxic levels of lead into the water system because their protective coatings had dissolved, and poisoned the water system for a city of 150,000 inhabitants.

Loren Pechtel wrote:How much of this was due to trying to make do with insufficient funding?

If they knew that the chemicals were needed to prevent lead leaching into the water system, then that is not a sufficient excuse. Suffering in silence is not a good option. Publicity of their problem, might have freed up money before it became a disaster.

I do agree they should say something but there's a lot of such abuse of states giving certain areas the short end of the stick. We've recently seen a blue city in a red state unable to maintain water purity because of this. They say something and get ignored until it reaches the point of boil-water notices.

ZVar wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:How much of this was due to trying to make do with insufficient funding?

None of it was because of funding. We aren't talking millions of dollars here. We are talking 300-600 a week depending on usage that week.

(Speaking as someone, that while I don't live in Flint, I do live in the same Genesee county, so I was here from the start.)
Oh, and I have to keep water bottles on hand because my daughter's best friend, who does live in Flint will not drink tap water now, not that I blame her.

If the funding isn't authorized it isn't authorized.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

ZVar wrote:None of it was because of funding. We aren't talking millions of dollars here. We are talking 300-600 a week depending on usage that week.

(Speaking as someone, that while I don't live in Flint, I do live in the same Genesee county, so I was here from the start.)
Oh, and I have to keep water bottles on hand because my daughter's best friend, who does live in Flint will not drink tap water now, not that I blame her.

If the funding isn't authorized it isn't authorized.

If I didn't make it obvious, they were authorized...

To make it more specific.
1. They were authorized to add the chemicals.
2. They had the chemicals to add.
3. They had the budget to replace used chemicals.
4. They were told by the Genesee County Drain Commission they should be using the chemicals.
5. They were allowed to use the Flint river as the water source by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) only if they added the chemicals.

So yes, they were authorized, they were even told it was a condition of using the Flint river, and they had the budget. They simply falsified the reports to the Michigan DEQ instead of doing their jobs.

ZVar wrote:
So yes, they were authorized, they wee even told it was a condition of using the Flint river, and they had the budget. They simply falsified the reports to the Michigan DEQ instead of doing their jobs.

How much money did they report spending on the chemicals they didn't buy?

kzt wrote:

ZVar wrote:
So yes, they were authorized, they wee even told it was a condition of using the Flint river, and they had the budget. They simply falsified the reports to the Michigan DEQ instead of doing their jobs.

How much money did they report spending on the chemicals they didn't buy?

That's the sad thing. They (Flint water plant) didn't even try to commit embezzlement. They simply falsified reports after the fact because they were too lazy (or something, never really found motivation) to do their jobs.

I mean if they were stealing the money I could at least understand why it happened, but for no reason is just mind boggling.

ZVar wrote:That's the sad thing. They (Flint water plant) didn't even try to commit embezzlement. They simply falsified reports after the fact because they were too lazy (or something, never really found motivation) to do their jobs.

I mean if they were stealing the money I could at least understand why it happened, but for no reason is just mind boggling.

You are missing a couple important data points there, ZVar.

1) Starting in 2002, The Flint government had collapsed due to the crumbling tax base, and the State government had appointed a series of unelected emergency management staff to take over city governance functions in 2011 (who reported to the Michigan Treasury dept.) These leaders made the following decisions and ran the coverup.

2) Originally, Flint Pulled their water from the Detroit water system (Whoo Boy, there's another, wackey wild story there if you ever want to go down that sordid rabbit hole. No water went bad there, but people still went to jail.) and for financial reasons (and to separate themselves from the debacle that was the Detroit water dept) the Emergency govt decided to pull their water from the Flint river instead, which happened in April 2014. So, the Flint City water plant had been receiving (partially?) treated water from Detroit, and now had to completely treat their own water from the Flint River.

3) The EPA later found that an insufficient level of Chlorine was introduced into the Flint treated water, leading to the Legionnaire's disease outbreak that killed 9.

4) Charges were later leveled against the Governor and the State Medical advisor (amongst others) due to improper oversite and and leadership. Most of the charges were later dropped. But the whole thing is a cesspool of incompetence and ineptitude that pervaded all levels of government.

Now, go through ZVar's story.

In short bad decisions were made by people who didn't know (or care) what they were doing. The people directly responsible had no oversite and no incentive to do their job correctly, and people at all levels of the government were too concerned with covering their asses than fixing the problem.

Theemile wrote:
You are missing a couple important data points there, ZVar.

1) Starting in 2002, The Flint government had collapsed due to the crumbling tax base, and the State government had appointed a series of unelected emergency management staff to take over city governance functions in 2011 (who reported to the Michigan Treasury dept.) These leaders made the following decisions and ran the coverup.

2) Originally, Flint Pulled their water from the Detroit water system (Whoo Boy, there's another, wackey wild story there if you ever want to go down that sordid rabbit hole. No water went bad there, but people still went to jail.) and for financial reasons (and to separate themselves from the debacle that was the Detroit water dept) the Emergency govt decided to pull their water from the Flint river instead, which happened in April 2014. So, the Flint City water plant had been receiving (partially?) treated water from Detroit, and now had to completely treat their own water from the Flint River.

As I said, I was here so I know what happened very well, not simply what hit the national news and the distortions that caused..... I also left out a lot yes, because I didn't see it a relevant.

On point one, while true on the face it ignores the reason it went into emergency management. Namely the city was bankrupt and kept getting more bankrupt every year because of corruption. Also note the employees of Flint water that made the decisions were the same ones working there before the emergency management was brought in.

Point two is what I really want to address though.
Flint never left Detroit water. Detroit water canceled the contract as soon as Flint voted to use the KWA pipeline once it was laid down and operational. The same day the city council (Not the emergency management team) voted to switch over once the pipeline was laid down. Note at this time the KWA had laid no pipe as was just trying to secure contracts so the project could move forward. The next day (literately, less than 24 hours later) Detroit Water canceled the contract forcing Flint to use their backup water source of the Flint River.
And it wasn't just switching, it also because. A new pipeline was needed, either from Detroit as the line being used was in such disrepair daily leaks were common, or the new KWA line.

And yes, Flint Water had experience using the Flint River, because of all the leaks in the Detroit pipeline they often used water from the Flint river.

Puidwen wrote:I've never like the way that criticism of the solarian league is phrased by a lot of the characters. It sort of implies that the solarian league should have went out and pick a fight for the heck of it.

It's a well known approach. There is a minor police action. It is used to test all the neato new weapons, and see which of them actually work and which of them do not.